Medicinal tablets are nothing new. Doctors have been dispensing pills for thousands of years. And now archaeologists have turned up some of those ancient medicines, which were preserved in a shipwreck for close to two millennia.

The pills primarily contained zinc compounds, probably the active medicinal ingredients. But researchers also detected starch, pollen, charcoal, fats and linen fibers. Those fibers helped the tablets hold their round, loaf-like shape, which may be the key to the medication's use: the Greek word meaning “small round loaves” also inspired the word collyrium, or eye-wash. The pills were probably either dissolved in liquid or ground into a powder and used to treat eye conditions. Who knows, maybe Hippocrates used them on his pupils.